Story highlights
NEW: Adnan G. El Shukrijumah grew up in the United States
He was once indicted by New York authorities as the mastermind of a terror plot
He was killed in a raid in South Waziristan on Saturday
Rewards for Justice program offered $5 million for information leading to capture
Pakistan’s army said it killed an al Qaeda operative who grew up in the United States and was on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.
Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 39, was once indicted for his alleged role in a terror plot to attack targets there and in the UK.
He was killed in a raid in South Waziristan on Saturday, Pakistani army spokesman Asim Bajwal said on Twitter.
Shukrijumah, a senior commander, is thought to have served as one of the leaders of al Qaeda’s external operations program, according to the FBI, hatching plots to attack the West.
He was indicted by New York authorities in 2010 over an alleged plot to have two men blow themselves up in the city’s subway system.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program had offered $5 million for information leading to his capture.
Lived in NYC, Florida
Shukrijumah was born in Saudi Arabia, the eldest son of a Saudi Imam, and came to America as a young child.
His family settled in Brooklyn, New York, where his father preached at a mosque. They lived at a nearby house before moving to Florida in the mid-’90s.
His father, who is now dead, opened a small mosque near Fort Lauderdale.
Shukrijumah worked at odd jobs, including selling used cars, and took classes in information technology and chemistry at a small college in South Florida. He also took classes to improve his English.
Then he disappeared.
The FBI says that after he left America, Shukrijumah started off as an al Qaeda dishwasher, doing menial tasks at training camps. But he rose in the ranks to a key leadership position.
An FBI counter-terrorism agent linked Shukrijumah to the thwarted New York subway suicide mission in fall of 2009 in the biggest post-9/11 terror investigation.
Two men admitted they planned to blow themselves up using homemade bombs.
Prosecutors say it was Shukrijumah who called the shots at the time – probably from somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border.